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This is the weblog of
Raymond Powers.
Here I will be sharing what I find of import, humor, concern, inspiration and on the transformational edge
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A Quote:
Wake up - the time is Now!
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Raymond lives in Ojai, where the time now is:
02:31PM
Unique Readers:
Primarily
Public Domain
Everything I've written here, except my copyrighted
essays, poetry, lyrics, and music is hereby placed in the public
domain. The quotes from other people's writings, and the pictures
used might or might not be copyrighted, but are considered fair
use. Thus the license here would best be described as:
Primarily Public
Domain.
Please ask permission if there is any question in
regards to public domain usage.
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| Tuesday, December 23, 2003 |  |
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23 Dec 2003 @ 01:29
First private rocket ship goes supersonic
The New Scientist Published: December 18, 2003
Author: David Chandler
The first piloted and rocket-powered craft to have been developed by a private company made its maiden flight on Wednesday, over the Mojave desert in California.
The craft, called Space Ship One (SS1), also become the first private craft to break the sound barrier, reaching a top speed of 930 mph (1490 km/h). The flight, exactly 100 years after the Wright brothers made their historic flight, marks a big step to winning the $10 million X Prize for private spaceflight.
SS1 has been developed by Scaled Composites, an aerospace company run by famed airplane pioneer Burt Rutan. Wednesday's flight followed a four-month series of unpowered drop and land tests.
Observers believe the flight could set the stage for the coming century in the same way the Wright brothers' began the last. Rick Tumlinson, head of the Space Frontier Foundation, says that, like the Wrights, "Scaled Composites is opening the next level of flight to the general public, and doing it without government money."
Nose up
The fully reusable system uses two vehicles. The first, a turbojet-powered carrier plane called White Knight, carries the second, SS1, up to about 15,000 metres (48,000 feet). SS1 is then released by White Knight and ignites its innovative hybrid rocket motor.
Test pilot Brian Binnie, at the controls of SS1, began the flight at 0815 PST, after being released from the carrier plane by its pilot, Peter Siebold. The two were moving at Mach 0.55 at the time of release.
Binnie then pulled SS1's nose up to 60° and lit the rocket for 15 seconds. This blasted SS1 to 930 mph, or Mach 1.2, and an altitude of 68,000 feet (20,700 km).
Such heights have not been seen by any such rocket craft since the X-15 test flights in the 1950s. Finally, SS1 glided down for 12 minutes and returned to the runway.
There were no problems during the flight, but the craft was blown sideways during landing and one wingtip hit the runway, causing minor damage.
Double trip
To win the X-Prize, the craft will have to reach an altitude of 100,000 metres (328,000 feet) with three people aboard, and then repeat the process within two weeks. Rutan and his colleagues plan to continue their cautious approach and push a bit higher with each flight over the coming months as they work toward the prize flights.
X-Prize Foundation president Peter Diamandis told New Scientist on Wednesday that of the 27 teams signed up for the X-Prize, Scaled Composites' is the first to have performed a test flight.
Flying a person in a privately financed rocket as Scaled Composites has now done was "definitely one of the major hurdles" towards the X-Prize, Diamandis says. But they will now have to deal with increasing speeds and heating of the structure.
"There are at least three other teams on his tail," Diamandis adds. "I have no doubt that we're going to have a winner" within the next year.
[Editor: boston_liberty] Excerpt: Observers believe the flight could set the stage for the coming century in the same way the Wright brothers' began the last. Rick Tumlinson, head of the Space Frontier Foundation, says that, like the Wrights, "Scaled Composites is opening the next level of flight to the general public, and doing it without government money." More >
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 23 Dec 2003 @ 01:26
Edwards Air Force Base, Travis, California - December 10, 2003 [SolarAccess.com] NASA and SunPower Corporation, a manufacturer and designer of silicon solar cells, have completed the installation of a 5-kW solar electric power system at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, located at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
"NASA has a long history of fielding innovative, breakthrough technology at NASA Dryden," said Tom Werner, CEO of SunPower Corp. "From the early supersonic aircraft to the space shuttle, NASA has pioneered technologies that had been previously considered impossible or impractical to implement. It is appropriate that NASA Dryden has installed the first A-300 system."
SunPower, a subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor Corp, has a history of collaboration with NASA. NASA used SunPower solar cells in its Helios solar-powered aircraft, which set an altitude record of 96,863 feet in 2001. The SunPower system at NASA Dryden is designed to provide clean electricity while helping to educate visitors about renewable energy.
"We are pleased that NASA was able to field the first commercial application of this exciting new solar electric power technology," said NASA's Jenny Baer-Riedhart. "Over the past seven years, we have worked with SunPower to develop high-efficiency solar cells to energize our highly successful Pathfinder Plus and Helios solar-powered aircraft as part of the Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology program. It's exciting to see this technology coming down to earth."
According to SunPower, the system is the first to incorporate the company's 20 percent efficient A-300 solar cells, which SunPower said are a significant improvement over many currently available cells in the 12 to 15 percent range, as higher-efficiency cells provide solar power systems with more power per unit area and can provide users with significant cost savings.
SunPower claims that with rated efficiency over 20 percent, the A-300 can deliver up to 50 percent more energy from a given roof area compared with traditional solar products. According to the company, unlike conventional solar cells, SunPower's A-300 incorporates all electrical contacts on the back surface; and this architecture allows for significantly higher conversion efficiency of light to electricity, and also eliminates unsightly reflective front-side contacts.
"The installation of the first full-scale A-300 system is a key milestone as we move toward volume production in 2004," said SunPower Vice President of Sales and Marketing Peter Aschenbrenner. "SunPower's high-efficiency solar cell technology not only provides more power per unit of roof area, but it can also drive significant system savings through reduced module assembly and downstream installation costs."
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| Friday, December 12, 2003 | |
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12 Dec 2003 @ 22:56
Light brought to a halt in scientific first
Research could lead to advances in quantum computers
Thursday, December 11, 2003
(AP) -- Physicists say they have brought light to a complete halt for a fraction of a second and then sent it on its way, an achievement that could someday help scientists develop powerful new computers.
The research differs from work published in 2001 that was hailed at the time as having brought light to standstill.
In that work, light pulses were technically "stored" briefly when individual particles of light, or photons, were taken up by atoms in a gas.
Harvard University researchers have now topped that feat by truly holding light and its energy in its tracks -- if only for a few hundred-thousandths of a second.
"We have succeeded in holding a light pulse still without taking all the energy away from it," said Mikhail D. Lukin, a Harvard physicist.
Harnessing light particles to store and process data could aid the still distant goal of so-called quantum computers, as well as methods for communicating information over long distances without risk of eavesdropping.
The research may also have applications for improving conventional fiber-optic communications and data processing techniques that use light as an information carrier. Lukin said the present research is just another step toward efforts to control light, but said additional work is needed to determine if it can aid these applications.
The findings appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Stanford University physicist Stephen Harris said the new research is promising and represents an important scientific first.
Matthew Bigelow, a scientist at the University of Rochester involved in light research, called the new study "very clever" and something that may ultimately spur the development of superior light-based computers.
"I think it's moving us in the right direction," he said. More >
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| Monday, December 8, 2003 | |
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8 Dec 2003 @ 13:18
This is a follow-up article to one I posted earlier in the year.
Injectable Bio-Chip Implant For Cashless Transactions By Sherrie Gossett © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com 11-22-3
At a global security conference held today in Paris, an American company announced a new syringe-injectable microchip implant for humans,designed to be used as a fraud-proof payment method for cash and credit-card transactions.
The chip implant is being presented as an advance over credit cards and smart cards, which, absent biometrics and appropriate safeguard technologies, are subject to theft, resulting in identity fraud.
Identity fraud costs the banking and financial industry some $48 billion a year, and consumers $5 billion, according to 2002 Federal Trade Commission estimates.
In his speech today at theID World 2003 conference in Paris, France, Scott R. Silverman, CEO of Applied Digital Solutions, called the chip a "loss-proof solution" and said that the chip's "unique under-the-skin format" could be used for a variety of identification applications in the security and financial worlds.
The company will have to compete, though, with organizations using just a fingerprint scan for similar applications.
The ID World Conference, held yesterday and today at the Charles de Gaulle Hilton, focused on current and future applications of radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies, biometrics, smart cards and data collection.
The company's various "VeriChips" are RFID chips, which contain a unique identification number and can carry other personal data about the implantee. When radio-frequency energy passes from a scanner, it energizes the chip, which is passive (not independently powered), and which then emits a radio-frequency signal transmitting the chip's information to the reader, which in turn links with a database.
ADS has previously touted its radio frequency identification (RFID) chips for secure building access, computer access, storage of medical records, anti-kidnapping initiatives and a variety of law-enforcement applications. The company has also developed proprietary hand-held readers and portal readers that can scan data when an implantee enters a building or room.
The "cashless society" application is not new it has been discussed previously by Applied Digital. Today's speech, however, represented the first formal public announcement by the company of such a program.
In announcing VeriPay to ID World delegates, Silverman stated the implant has "enormous marketplace potential" and invited banking and credit companies to partner with VeriChip Corporation (a subsidiary of ADS) in developing specific commercial applications beginning with pilot programs and market tests.
Applied Digital's announcement in Paris suggested wireless technologies, RFID development, new software solutions, smart-card applications and subdermal implants might one day merge as the ultimate solution for a world fraught with identity theft, threatened by terrorism, buffeted by cash-strapped governments and law-enforcement agencies looking for easy data-collection, and corporations interested in the marketing bonanza that cutting-edge identification, payment, and location-based technologies can afford.
Verichip
Cashless payment systems are now part of a larger technology development subset: government identification experiments that seek to combine cashless payment applications with national ID information on media (such as a "smart" card), which contain a whole host of government, personal, employment and commercial data and applications on a single, contactless RFID chip.
In some scenarios, government-corporate coalitions are advocating such a chip be used by employees also to access entry to their workplace and the company computer network, reducing the cost outlay of the corporations for individual ID cards.
Malaysia's "MyKad" national ID "smart" card is the foremost example.
Meanwhile, privacy advocates have expressed concern over RFID technology rollouts, citing database concerns and the specter of individuals' RFID chips being read without permission by people who have their own hand-held readers.
Several privacy and civil liberties groups have recently for a voluntary moratorium on RFID tagging "until a formal technology assessment process involving all stakeholders, including consumers, can take place." Signatories to the petition include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Privacy International and the Foundation for Information Policy Research, a British think tank.
Commenting on today's announcement, Richard Smith, a computer industry consultant, referred to what some "netizens" are already calling "chipectomies": "VeriChips can still be stolen. It's just a bit gruesome when to think how the crooks will do these kinds of robberies."
Citing MasterCard's PayPass, Smith pointed out that most of the major credit-card companies are looking at RFID chips to make credit cards quicker, easier, and safer to use.
"The big problem is money," said Smith. "It will take billions of dollars to upgrade the credit-card networks from magstripe readers to RFID readers. During the transition, a credit card is going to need both a magstripe and an RFID chip so that it is universally accepted."
Some industry professionals advocate having citizens pay for combined national ID/cashless pay chips, which would be embedded in a chosen medium.
Identification technologies using RFID can take a wide variety of physical forms and show no sign yet of coalescing into a single worldwide standard.
Prior to today's announcement, Art Kranzley, senior vice president at MasterCard, commented on the Pay Pass system in a USA Today interview: "We're certainly looking at designs like key fobs. It could be in a pen or a pair of earrings. Ultimately, it could be embedded in anything someday, maybe even under the skin." More >
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| Monday, November 10, 2003 | |
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10 Nov 2003 @ 22:13
Discovered by chance, a revolutionary battery powered by water only, could one day light up a whole city
London: The battery of the future could be powered by nothing but water, following a breakthrough by two Canadian scientists who have discovered an entirely new way to generate electricity - the first since 1839.
Initial applications could be cellphones and other electronic devices that now use rechargeable batteries, but Larry Kostiuk and Daniel Kwok, researchers at the University of Alberta who made the discovery, think that in time it could even be used for full-scale power generation.
When the "water battery" ran down, you would simply pump it up, perhaps with your hands. It would be non-polluting and non-toxic and completely portable. And it could be ready for commercial application before the end of the decade.
The discovery, which uses the movement of water through microscopic channels to generate electricity - and even in a laboratory set-up can power an LED, using just a hand-operated syringe, some water, and a piece of glass one centimetre in diameter and three millimetres long - is a breakthrough application of nanotechnology, the science of molecule-sized artifacts.
It was also a complete accident, caused by Kostiuk's decision after he was appointed head of the university's department of engineering to go out and discover what his colleagues were actually doing.
One of those was Daniel Kwok, who was working in the abstruse-sounding field of nano-fabrication.
"How long did we work on it? Oh boy, it's embarrassing," said Kostiuk, who normally works in the field of combustion chemistry. "It's not like we laboured for years. One afternoon I went to visit Daniel, and he was explaining what he did in electrokinetics" - the science of electrical charge in moving substances such as water.
Kwok explained how, when water travels over a surface, the ions that it is made up of "rub" against the solid. That leaves the surface slightly charged.
"So I said, 'If you have separated the charges, then it looks a lot to me like a battery'," recalled Kostiuk. At which Kwok started looking at his work with new eyes.
"We got about 10 volts and one milli-amp out of a piece of glass with 10 000 microchannels," said Kwok. "Right now we can power an LED with no problem, using just a syringe with some water that we push over the channels." The key thing about the work, which is published today by the Institute of Physics journal, Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, is that it would simply have been impossible to develop and exploit 20 years or so ago.
And might it one day power everything, including our homes? "You'd need a really big area, like a coastal region," said Kostiuk. "But then again, I guess those are available, aren't they?" - The Independent
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| Thursday, November 6, 2003 | |
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6 Nov 2003 @ 10:50
New phone uses finger as earpiece
November 6, 2003
A JAPANESE company has invented the world's first wristwatch phone which works by transforming the user's finger into an earpiece, New Scientist says in it's next issue, due out on Saturday.
The prototype gadget, Finger Whisper, consists of a wristband that converts digital signals into vibrations that are transmitted into the bones of the hand.
The user puts his finger into his ear for the vibrations to be picked up by the eardrum, which then transcribes them back into sound signals for the brain.
To respond, the user simply speaks into a microphone on the wristband.
By touching forefinger to thumb, the user starts or ends a call, and the device uses voice recognition technology to dial the number. There is no keypad.
Japanese telecommunications giant NTT DoCoMo is developing the idea, which is the brainchild of a research engineer, Masaaki Fukumoto.
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| Monday, November 3, 2003 | |
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3 Nov 2003 @ 23:00
Batcane
The ‘Batcane’ has been developed using two distinct types of technology: The first is inspired by the way bats navigate in darkness. The ‘Batcane’ uses ultrasonic signals which bounce off objects present in the environment and feed information back to the cane. This covers the areas in front and, uniquely, to the head height of the user. It is the first cane which gives reliable information about obstacles at that height, such as low branches and wing mirrors on lorries.
The second new technology is tactile feedback designed to access a specific part of the brain used in mapping the surroundings. We move around in a complex environment, and the Batcane enables the visually impaired user to build a mental map of the surroundings without effort, and without resorting to auditory signals which might interfere with other sounds in the area, such as beeps from reversing vans.
The batcane is now being developed for manufacture and will be launched at the start of 2004.
Batcane More >
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| Friday, October 17, 2003 | |
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 17 Oct 2003 @ 09:00
ACPropulsion Electric Car
Continuing to make breakthroughs in electric car technology
(Though I believe electric cars are still not the best method for clean energy technology)
Wednesday, August 27th, the Li-Ion tzero was driven for the first time. The 90-mile test drive included climbing to the top of Mt. Baldy road, a 40-mile loop including a climb to 6000+ feet elevation, and a 35-mile highway loop at 70-75 mph. At the end of the test drive less than 1/3 of the measured battery capacity had been used. During the test drive, the tzero battery exhibited excellent voltage uniformity, excellent temperature distribution and control, and high discharge rate capability. The Mt. Baldy trip gave the highest regenerative energy recapture ratio that we have ever observed, demonstrating the high cycle-efficiency of the cells.
The weight of the tzero is reduced to under 2000 pounds, providing significant improvements in acceleration, handling, and efficiency. As a complete car, the Li-ion tzero has higher specific energy, in Wh/kg, than the RAV4 EV battery pack alone.
This first drive confirms the benefits of Li-Ion batteries, demonstrates the usability of small, commercial, off-the-shelf Li cells for automotive applications, and increases our confidence in the techniques we have developed for assembling them into automotive packs.
Testing and development of the Li-Ion tzero continue. The results so far justify our moving forward with plans for design and development of other vehicle applications for this technology. More extensive test results and developments will be posted here in the coming weeks. More >
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| Wednesday, October 15, 2003 | |
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15 Oct 2003 @ 13:28
Tracking Junior With A Microchip
By Julia Scheeres Wired.com 10-10-3
A Mexican company has launched a service to implant microchips in children as an anti-kidnapping device.
Solusat, the Mexican distributor of the VeriChip -- a rice-size microchip that is injected beneath the skin and transmits a 125-kilohertz radio frequency signal -- is marketing the device as an emergency ID under its new VeriKid program.
The service has even garnered the backing of Mexico's National Foundation of Investigations of Robbed and Missing Children, which has agreed to promote the service.
According to a press release announcing the collaboration, the foundation has estimated that 133,000 Mexican children have been abducted over the past five years.
Foundation officials did not respond to interview requests.
A Solusat executive said the terms of the agreement are still being hashed out.
"There are distinct projects on the table, but one form of finding (children) is by putting scanners in strategic locations where a search is being conducted for a VeriKid that has been reported missing," said Carlos Altamirano, Solusat's associate general director.
The company envisions placing walk-through scanners -- similar to metal-detector portals used in airports -- in malls, bus stations and other areas where a missing child may appear. The chip also could be used to identify children who are found unconscious, drugged, dead or too young to identify themselves.
Critics said kidnappers could circumvent the device easily.
"My big concern is that kidnappers will simply use 'high-tech' tools like knives to get rid of them," said Lauren Weinstein, creator of the Privacy Forum, an online digest related to privacy and technology issues.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center also has warned that inserting a type of LoJack into children and workers to track their movements could violate their civil liberties.
Solusat began selling VeriChip -- which is similar to the biochips used to track cattle and lost pets -- in Mexico in July; it's been sold in the United States since October 2002.
The VeriChip is injected under the skin of the upper arm or hip in an outpatient procedure. A special scanner reads the RF signal emitted by the microchip to obtain the device's ID number, which then is entered into a database to access personal data about the individual. Other potential uses of the chip, according to company officials, include scanning unconscious patients to obtain their medical records or restricting access to high-security buildings by scanning workers to verify their clearance.
In Mexico, the cost of the VeriChip and the doctor's fee for implantation is about $200, in addition to a $50 annual fee to maintain the database. The handheld scanner costs an additional $1,200, Altamirano said. The company refused to disclose the price of the portal scanners.
VeriChip manufacturer Applied Digital Solutions said it plans to roll out the VeriKid service in other countries, including the United States, in the future. More >
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| Thursday, October 9, 2003 | |
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9 Oct 2003 @ 17:51
BLIND SEE WITH SOUND
By Lakshmi Sandhana
BBC News Tuesday,
Ocotber 7, 2003
Michelle Thomas is learning to "see", not with her eyes but her ears.
Now she can also use a mobile camera phone to do it.
Blind since birth, Ms Thomas is able to recognize the walls and doors of her house, discern whether the lights are on or off and even distinguish a CD from a floppy disk after only a week using a revolutionary new system.
She is "seeing with sound".
Developed by Dr Peter Meijer, a senior scientist at Philips Research Laboratories in the Netherlands, the system is called The vOICe (the three middle letters standing for "Oh I See").
It works by translating images from a camera on-the-fly into highly complex soundscapes, which are then transmitted to the user over headphones.
Watch the 'spikes'
A wearable setup consists of a head-mounted camera, stereo headphones and a notebook PC.
In total it costs about $2,500. The software is available as a free download.
Meijer is bargaining on the brain's adaptive capacity.
He hopes that blind users will ultimately learn to mentally reconstruct the visual content of the live camera views, as carried by the soundscapes, so that they experience something akin to meaningful vision.
"Our assumption here is that the brain is ultimately not interested in the information 'carrier' (here sound) but only in the information 'content'," says Meijer.
"After all, the signals in the optic nerve of a normally sighted person are also 'just' neural spiking patterns. What you think you 'see' is what your brain makes of all those firing patterns."
Easy 'tongue'
Enabling users to get an audio snapshot of what is visually in front of them, The vOICe is taking a very different route from "bionic eyes" -- retinal and brain implants.
It is non-invasive, offering a higher image resolution (up to several thousand pixels) and does not necessarily rely on the visual cortex.
"Everything has its own unique sound and once you learn the principles involved you can know what you're seeing," says Thomas.
Right now brighter areas sound louder, height is indicated by pitch and a built-in colour identifier speaks out colour names when activated.
While it can't track fast cars or read small print efficiently, it does allow blind users to trace out buildings, read a graph and even watch television.
Comparing it in terms of difficulty to learning a foreign language, Meijer hopes that in the long run, users will become more "fluent" in the mental translation so that it becomes more like natural perception, without conscious effort.
Mobile vision
Kevin O'Regan, of the CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) in Paris, France, and an expert in the area of sensory consciousness, is currently evaluating The vOICe.
He believes that if perfected, the software could at least partially evoke vision-like sensations in even the congenitally blind.
"The problem is that vision is a very high bandwidth system, and it's not clear whether we can achieve sufficient bandwidth via other modalities," he stated.
To suit user preferences, Blue Edge Bulgaria has developed a simplified but highly portable mobile phone version of The vOICe for the Nokia 3650 camera phone.
It is available as a free download at The vOICe site More >
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| Wednesday, October 1, 2003 | |
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1 Oct 2003 @ 23:30
3G Mobile Signals Can Cause Nausea, Headache
Tue Sep 30, 4:03 PM ET
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Radio signals for the next generation of mobile phone services can cause headaches and nausea, according to a study conducted by three Dutch ministries.
The study, the first of its kind, compared the impact of radiation from base stations used for the current mobile telephone network with that of base stations for new third generation (3G) networks for fast data transfer, which will enable services such as video conferencing on a mobile device.
A base station, which usually covers a "cell" area of several square kilometers (miles), transmits signals to mobile phones with an electromagnetic field.
"If the test group was exposed to third generation base station signals there was a significant impact ... They felt tingling sensations, got headaches and felt nauseous," a spokeswoman for the Dutch Economics Ministry said.
There was no negative impact from signals for current mobile networks.
However, cognitive functions such as memory and response times were boosted by both 3G signals and the current signals, the study found. It said people became more alert when they were exposed to both.
Government ministers responsible for Economic Affairs, Health and Telecommunications said follow-up research was needed to confirm the findings as well as to look at any longer-term health effects and biological causes.
They will also discuss the study with the European Commission (news - web sites), the spokeswoman said.
The double-blind laboratory tests -- meaning no one in the survey knew if a 3G-like base station was actually transmitting signals -- exposed test subjects to expected levels of average radiation for 3G networks when they become commercial.
The GSM Association, a global organization of mobile telecommunications operators, said it was studying the report and could not comment.
The study, conducted by the Dutch technological research institute TNO, was the first to look for an impact of mobile telephones on well-being. It was also the first study to find a statistically significant negative impact from 3G base stations.
Previous research on a negative health impact of mobile phones, mostly second-generation, has been inconclusive.
Existing research gives no scientific evidence that second-generation phones cause brain tumors, while a long-term study by the International Agency on Research on Cancer is not expected to yield results before 2004.
Previous research did find an impact on cognitive functions, which was also found in the Dutch survey. But TNO noted that earlier studies always measured the impact of cellphones held close to the head, causing high fields of radiation close to the ear and warming of the brain.
TNO's study used lower a dose of radiation to mimic base station signals rather than handsets.
Handsets emit stronger radiation when they are used, while base stations transmit more constant levels of radio signals, exposing everyone within range.
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| Monday, September 29, 2003 | |
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29 Sep 2003 @ 12:30
http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp http://www.haarp.com/main.html
HAARP: THE MASSIVE U.S. KILLER WEAPON? NEWSEDITOR: Aren't we using this weapon against Americans, doesn't it create storms and high wind? Couldn't it stop a hurricane from hitting shore? Does it create draught in certain areas? Couldn't it take a state completely off the map if they wanted to? This seems to be a deadly weapon, but Russia and China have them too. ( right ) I hope not as big. -- thanks Rob ANSWER: Rob -- your heart's in the right place but you are sadly misinformed by some real disinformation artists about what HAARP is and does. I do not work for HAARP, and I'm sure not on their side but I have spent the last several years debunking the many false myths about HAARP. (See the archived articles below. ) Even according to the HAARP inventor, Dr Eastlund, a HAARP-like radio can only affect the weather right above it and not anywhere else. Thus HAARP cannot create or stop storms, nor move hurricanes. HAARP cannot create droughts nor wipe any state off the map. It cannot even affect people on the earth. What HAARP can do is shoot high speed electrons in the form of lethal beta-radiation into the vacuum of space. But the radiation is completely absorbed by the atmosphere in the same way the particle radiation from the sun is absorbed by the air. HAARP can shoot that radiation into space to knock down missiles, satellites and Shuttles while they are still in space but cannot affect anything within the atmosphere. HAARP is a nifty operating military anti-missile shield. Which is why it is so hush-hush top secret with so many false cover stories. To do what HAARP can do, the transmitter must be just below the Aurora ring. That ring does not cross over Europe or Russia. The transmitter must also be on the line from the north to south magnetic poles. There are many similar "ionospheric heaters" in the world. But they can't shoot radiation like HAARP. There can only be one HAARP, under the Aurora ring and where it crosses that line in eastern Alaska. More >
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| Sunday, September 28, 2003 | |
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28 Sep 2003 @ 00:44
Care and Handling Guide for CD / DVD Preservation
This National Institute of Standards and Technology report examines the life-span of the medium, best practices for storage, environmental conditions affecting them (not including your patrons' children and dogs), and cleaning techniques.
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28 Sep 2003 @ 00:41
Get news, statistics, tools, patents, and white papers relating to Google
The world according to Google
You could call this a Yahoo!-style guide to Google with its directory listing the main categories and sub-categories. I'm still amazed at how a plain-looking search engine is equipped with such powerful features and lots of other goodies, especially after reading Tara Calishain's Google Hacks. You could try to find this stuff on Google, of course, but since its focus is helping you find things, its site is not optimized to talk about itself. Get news, statistics, tools, patents, and white papers (*snore*) relating to Google. Google Dance? At first glance, this sounds like a fun and games thingy, but quite the contrary: it's serious. Dance your way to Indicateur and find out what it is and why it can send people in a panic. The fun part comes in at The World of Google. I'm just gaga for Google.
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| Saturday, September 20, 2003 | |
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20 Sep 2003 @ 14:46
Car Info.com
"Car Information provided by consumer advocate & auto expert Mark Eskeldson, author of What Car Dealers Don't Want You to Know." Includes money saving tips for buying and leasing cars, new and used car quotes, used vehicle history reports, auto repair secrets, and more.
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| Monday, September 15, 2003 | |
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15 Sep 2003 @ 20:46
Solar Power Energy Conversion Efficiency at "Way More Than 50 Percent"
Conventional solar panels are terribly inefficient at converting sunlight into useable power. The development out of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is extremely exciting!
This story also proves that the reason we don't have viable energy alternatives is because there is no will in corporate or government circles to create them. I've been saying it for years, and I'll say it again: The barriers to clean power are political in nature, not technological.
Let's do some simple arithmetic to demonstrate the point.
This solar project at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has cost $700,000 over a period of three years, and has already increased solar power conversion efficiency by over 100%! Again, this was accomplished with only $700,000. Let's take a look at the costs associated with the U.S. occupation of Iraq. You better be sitting down for this:
Cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq per month: $4,000,000,000 (source) Cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq per week: $1,000,000,000 Cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq per day: $142,857,142 Cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq per hour: $5,952,380 Cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq per minute: $99,206
In eight minutes, the U.S. Government spends more money on running an illegal and unnecessary war than it took for a group of researchers to develop photovoltaic technology that is over 100% more efficient than previous designs. This cannot be explained away as merely "the vagaries of a big government," or some sort of endemic negligence. I'm not even sure this can be chocked up to criminal collusion at the highest levels. Nope. What we are witnessing is nothing less than death throws of a system that has gone totally insane.
Read this article and think about what we could accomplish if a criminal gang hadn't stolen our entire existence at gunpoint:
These photovoltaic window shades quietly capture the sun's rays of heat and light, focusing them into the small silicon squares, also called solar chips. The chips convert the light energy into electrical power and feed it into the building's electrical system; the energy goes into the heating and cooling systems.
While Dyson won't comment on actual costs and efficiency rates until the research is published this fall, she did reveal that Bernie Sater at Photovolt, Rensselaer's manufacturing and design partner, has developed a new manufacturing process that "gets the cost down far enough that you can use it."
Dyson said a single solar cell will cost about 25 cents. The cells are situated about a square foot apart and will have a "way more than 50 percent" energy-conversion rate, she added. posted by Kevin F at 7:03 PM More >
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| Thursday, September 11, 2003 | |
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11 Sep 2003 @ 11:35
JUST A QUESTION OF STANDARDS
Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells...?
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used?
Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads.
Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
Why did "they" use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the roads?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it that way and wonder what horse's ass came up with that, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.
Now the twist to the story....
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.
The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a Horse's ass.
And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important??
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2003 | |
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10 Sep 2003 @ 19:07
Air Force launches top secret satellite
CNN
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) -- The Air Force launched a top-secret satellite Tuesday for the National Reconnaissance Office, which operates the United States' fleet of spy spacecraft.
A Titan IV-B rocket was used to launch the large spacecraft, believed to be an electronics listening satellite, into a position 22,300 miles above the Earth's equator.
The National Reconnaissance Office would not reveal any details about the satellite, including its cost, purpose or which contractor built it.
"I cannot discuss what the payload is other than to tell you that it will provide additional capabilities for our nation's leadership and military," said Art Haubold, a spokesman for the NRO.
This particular satellite was delayed for more than three years due to technical problems and had been scheduled for launch as recently as several months ago.
The NRO's electronics listening satellites use baseball diamond-size antennas which fold up like an umbrella for launch.
The large antennas permit the satellite to monitor extremely faint signals, even individual cell phone conversations.
It's believed that similar satellites have been used to monitor and track terrorists.
Astronomer and satellite observer Ted Molczan said: "These satellites are so large they can be seen in high quality backyard telescopes. Some amateur satellite observers have photographed these satellites in their operational locations."
The launch marked the first NRO satellite from Florida in five years.
The previous launch, a less sophisticated listening satellite, did not reach orbit because the rocket's guidance system failed. More >
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| Friday, September 5, 2003 | |
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 5 Sep 2003 @ 09:22
The netzspannung.org is an information, communication and production platform for art, culture and new media. Its significance lies in the development of a productive network of relationships between artists, scientists and computer experts, as well as in the creation of an information interface between the media culture scene and the TIME industries. The aim is to bundle existing activities and create the basis for a melting pot forging innovations in media culture.
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 5 Sep 2003 @ 09:18
The Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC)
The Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC) at the University of Southern California (USC) is the National Science Foundation's Exclusive Engineering Research Center for multimedia and Internet research. IMSC carries out a successful cross-disciplinary program of research, education, outreach, industry collaboration and technology transfer.
As a leader in the multimedia and Internet field, IMSC has developed such unique immersive technologies as 3D face modeling and animation, immersivision panoramic video technology, and immersive audio. Major progress is also being made in haptics (touch-related technologies), data compression and wireless communications.
IMSC's integrated research approach is progressing toward Immersipresence, the Center's vision for the future of the Internet. IMSC views Immersipresence as the next great breakthrough in our digital era that will dramatically change our world within this decade, transforming our 2D world of computers, TV and film into 3D immersive environments.
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Sounding Circle - Category: Technology
